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Business

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, with the leave of the House, immediately following proceedings on the Borough Freedom (Family Succession) Bill, my noble and learned friend Lord Goldsmith will repeat a Statement which is being made in another place on Guantanamo Bay.

We shall then proceed with the Education Bill. At a convenient moment after 6.30 p.m., again with the leave of the House, my noble friend the Leader of the House will repeat a Statement which is being made in another place on Northern Ireland.
 
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The dinner-break business will begin upon conclusion of that Statement. After the Northern Ireland order, we will immediately return to the Education Bill, so long as it is not before 8 p.m. Proceedings on the Bill will then continue until around 10 p.m. as usual.

Borough Freedom (Family Succession) Bill [HL]

Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Unless, therefore, any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.

Moved, That the order of commitment be discharged.—(Lord Graham of Edmonton.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Guantanamo Bay

The Attorney-General (Lord Goldsmith): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary. The Statement is as follows:

"With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a Statement concerning the return to the United Kingdom of the four British citizens detained at Guantanamo Bay.

"Let me first recall the context.

"The attacks of 11 September 2001 were the worst terrorist atrocity which the United States, the United Kingdom and, indeed, the world have ever suffered. In response to those attacks a coalition of countries came together to launch a military campaign against Al'Qaeda and its Taleban supporters to remove them from their strongholds in Afghanistan and elsewhere. In those operations thousands of individuals believed to be Al'Qaeda or Taleban fighters or their supporters were detained by coalition forces.

"The vast majority of those individuals were released, but those who were deemed to pose a substantial risk of returning to the conflict were sent by the United States to its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, there to be detained and questioned about their knowledge of Al'Qaeda's activity. As a result, valuable information has been gained, which has helped to protect the international community from further Al'Qaeda and related terrorist attacks.

"Approximately 200 individuals have been released from Guantanamo Bay since their original detention. However, the United States Government believe that a number of detainees so released have returned to terrorism, demonstrating the dilemma faced by the US in considering such releases.
 
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"Nine British citizens were among those originally detained at Guantanamo Bay. I, and the Government as a whole, have taken our consular responsibilities to those detained very seriously. British officials have visited them regularly, delivered messages and mail from their families and secured improvements in the physical conditions of their detention. I have made a Written Statement to the House following each of those visits.

"I have set out to the House on many occasions the British Government's consistent position in relation to those detainees. As the House will recall, discussions took place in 2003, led by the Attorney-General on the United Kingdom side. The Government then requested the return of all the British detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Five of the nine British detainees were returned to the United Kingdom last March.

"In announcing their return to the House, I said that the Government would continue to work to resolve the position of the remaining four British detainees: Feroz Abbasi, Moazzam Begg, Jamaal Belmar and Martin Mubanga. Since last March, the Government have been in regular discussion with the United States authorities about this. Foreign Office Ministers and I have also held meetings with the families and lawyers of the four men, and with their Members of Parliament. Officials have been in regular contact.

"Following contacts between the United Kingdom and the United States, involving in particular my right honourable friend the Prime Minister and his office, and between the United States Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and me, the United States Government have now agreed to the return of all four men to the United Kingdom. That decision follows intensive and complex discussions to address US security concerns. All the families have been informed of the decision this morning.

"The four men will be returned in the next few weeks. Once they are back in the UK, the police will consider whether to arrest them under the Terrorism Act 2000 for questioning in connection with possible terrorist activity. Any subsequent action will be a matter for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. The House will understand that it would not therefore be right for me to comment on this aspect of the matter.

"I should like to assure the House that every practical step will be taken by the relevant United Kingdom authorities to maintain national security and to protect public safety.

"Throughout the period of detention of British nationals in Guantanamo Bay, the Government have sought to balance the need to safeguard the interests of Britons detained overseas with our duty to meet the threat from international terrorism.

"Terrorism is opposed to the values of every faith and religion, and seeks to deny the most basic of human rights—to life, to security, and the right to go about our daily business free from harm. Working with our allies, we will continue resolutely
 
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to defend these rights through a robust and determined approach to combating terrorism and its networks of support wherever it is to be found".

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am sure that we are all extremely grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General for repeating the Statement. I should make clear that we welcome the announcement. We recognise that some of those still detained at Guantanamo Bay may have committed the foulest deeds, and that there has been genuine ambiguity over the status of individuals there who have acted with unparalleled violence, outside all the rules of war—in particular, whether they are prisoners of war or illegal combatants, or simply charged with criminal offences.

Nevertheless, the three-year history of Guantanamo Bay and its detainees leaves a nasty taste. Disputes continue, not least in the United States, about how its inmates have been handled, are being handled or should be handled. At least all the British citizens are now clear of Camp Delta.

Have we established the true circumstances in which the four remaining detainees were originally arrested, and does that satisfy the noble and learned Lord that there can be a clear basis on which to decide whether they should be re arrested here? Will the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, which the noble and learned Lord mentioned, be in a position to proceed with full investigations as soon as they return? If it should happen that charges are preferred under current anti-terrorism legislation, can we be assured that the four remaining detainees, or any one of them, will be subject to law by due process, meaning a free and fair trial? Can we assume that these four, having been held longer than the earlier five, are considered less straightforward cases than the previous batch? Is there some sort of differentiation here that led to the delay of their release or return to this country? Above all, can we be assured that nothing in this process will in any way involve a further danger to national security and public safety, beyond the permanent threat that terrorism offers every day to open societies such as ours, which is always with us now, whether we like it or not.

On the wider context of all the Guantanamo detainees, which obviously must concern us as allies of the United States, is it now the position that the military commissions set up by the US Administration have been suspended by order of a federal judge? Has the Supreme Court ruled on those matters? What exactly is the commission law under which the US Government want the trials to take place, and do they, as appears to be the case, exclude the calling of all expert legal witnesses? Have we raised these broader but important issues with Washington? Is it correct that an inquiry about prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay is now under way? Were we consulted about that, and are we being kept informed about its progress?
 
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We are fighting for a world of law and civilised behaviour against enemies who respect no laws and rules, and who believe in pitiless barbarity and contempt for civilian life. Guantanamo undoubtedly contained, and may still contain, some deeply dangerous men. There must be no weakness in defending our values against such people, but there must be no weakness either in adhering, ourselves, to the values for which we are fighting.

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